


holding my breath makes me choke

by nosecoffee



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 5 + 1, Comedy, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Rom-Com Elements, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-09-22 03:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17052440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (it’s all so quick and i feel sick - i’m used to being a joke)*Éponine frowns further. “Late? Enjolras? Are we in the Twilight Zone?” She surveys the room with narrowed eyes, as if looking for a shadowy alcove where Enjolras has stashed himself and is waiting to jump out and yellboo!“This has gotta be a prank.”“Afraid not.” Marius informs her, hardly pulling his gaze from Cosette’s lips. If oral fixation actually existed, Grantaire thinks Marius’s picture would be the definition in the dictionary. “He’s now exactly fifteen minutes late.”(Five Times Enjolras Was Late and One Time He Made Grantaire Late, Too)





	holding my breath makes me choke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrinceDrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/gifts).



> Title from "If I'm Being Honest" by Dodie
> 
> Merry Christmas! Sorry this is so late, apparently I'm hopeless.

**1.**

Cosette’s been blowing bubblegum since Grantaire arrived, this morning. Every time it pops, there’s a new strand of bubblegum sticking to her lips. Grantaire notices how much this distracts Marius. To be fair, it’s _also_ distracting _Grantaire_ , but that’s because he was on edge anyway, and with each snap as the bubble pops, he holds back a flinch.

Combeferre keeps checking his watch. The fact that anyone in this day and age even owns a watch truly amazes Grantaire, but, more than that, the fact that someone can find the need to glance at their watch three times within a minute seems over the top.

Jehan’s asleep in his chair, glasses slipping down his nose, Feuilly’s picking at his nails, and Bahorel’s using his tongue to play with his lip piercing, while playing Temple Run on his outdated phone.

Everyone’s waiting, and it’s driving Grantaire up the wall.

Cosette’s bubblegum pops again, Jehan let’s out a snore so loud that it literally startles him awake, and then the door opens and everyone whirls around. It’s Éponine, quickly followed by Bossuet, Musichetta, and Joly. Every time Joly’s cane makes contact with the wood, Grantaire flinches. They’re all carrying coffee trays, and Bahorel gets to his feet to help them distribute the cups.

Of course. Éponine still works at that dinky little coffee shop, and she knows all of their orders, so it makes sense that she’d make her grand entrance this morning with coffees for everyone.

After gently handing Marius his cup and nearly spilling Grantaire’s, she discards her tray and looks around, puzzled. “Where’s Enjolras?” She asks, and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Late.” Courfeyrac replies, emerging from the bathroom as he zips up his fly. Musichetta passes him his caramel frappe and he kisses her cheek, mumbling something like, “My saviour, my dear.”

Éponine frowns further. “Late? Enjolras? Are we in the _Twilight Zone?”_ She surveys the room with narrowed eyes, as if looking for a shadowy alcove where Enjolras has stashed himself and is waiting to jump out and yell _boo!_ “This has gotta be a prank.”

“Afraid not.” Marius informs her, hardly pulling his gaze from Cosette’s lips. If oral fixation actually existed, Grantaire thinks Marius’s picture would be the definition in the dictionary. “He’s now exactly fifteen minutes late.”

Combeferre huffs, and glances down at his watch. Grantaire twitches and takes a sip of his coffee.

“That’s gotta be a record.” Éponine notes, conversationally, taking the empty seat beside Grantaire.

“Oh, probably.” Courfeyrac agrees. He’s somehow managed to get whipped cream all over his upper lip. He looks like Colonel Sanders, if Colonel sanders wore muscle tops, had a tooth gap, curly black hair, and freckles. So, actually, not at all like Colonel Sanders.

Grantaire takes another sip of coffee. It’s funny how one deviation from routine can absolutely run him into the ground, anxiety wise. If he wasn't so on edge, he'd be making jokes by now, but he's not in the mood, as he feels like he's just been dragged along a highway for a few miles, emotionally. Enjolras’s presence would only heighten that feeling, he supposes, and it'd probably end in flames, the way every other interaction with Enjolras goes.

Of course, it is a tad surprising that this seems to be first instance, ever, that Enjolras has been late to a meeting. Grantaire joined the gorup just over a year ago, and in that time Enjolras had always been either bang on time or early. The group's been running for years longer than that, however, and the notion that Enjolras has never ever been late is kind of ridiculous. It's makes today momentous.

“Wanna make some bets?” Éponine suggests, once again breaking the tense silence.

“On why Enjolras is late?” Courfeyrac inquires, curiously.

“Mhmm.” She hums.

Bahorel pauses his game of Temple Run and shakes his head, despite looking intrigued. “I’m afraid for my money, so I’m gonna bow out before this fully begins.” He tells them.

“Coward.” Éponine accuses, playfully, and he sticks his tongue out at her. Grantaire knows she's teasing, but in the times Grantaire’s known Bahorel, he's made not two, not three, but five bets that went in the other guy’s favour. He's watched Bahorel lose a lot of money, so it seems pretty fair that he'd be shying away from this. “Let’s start the betting at ten bucks.”

“I reckon he just got hit by a car.” Bossuet says, and Musichetta whacks his arm, smothering her giggles in her elbow.

“Bold of you to assume getting hit by a car would stop Enjolras.” Combeferre says, finally speaking up. At the collective silence that follows, he continues with a fond smile, “He broke his arm when he was fourteen during the lunch break at school, and still went to class so he could give his presentation. _Without_ going to hospital first.”

“I hope he got an A.” Joly murmurs to Courfeyrac, who murmurs back, through a mouthful of Bossuet’s cookie, “He got an A-minus. Some of his referencing was done wrong.”

“How’d he break his arm?” Cosette asks, curiously, and blows another bubble. The tops of Marius’s cheeks go pink and Grantaire thanks god that ten year-old Grantaire’s prayers for mind-reading powers were never answered. If there’s thoughts he never wants to know about in this world, they’re Marius’s.

Combeferre smiles, and says, “Fell out of a tree, after Courf dared him to climb all the way to the top.”

“Enj has never turned down a dare.” Courfeyrac adds, with a toothy grin. That does sound about right. In the first few days of knowing Enjolras, Grantaire found himself being escorted home by him, after drinking a great deal of his weight in schnapps. And not even good schnapps, mind you - if the stuff even exists - bottom shelf, peach flavoured schnapps.

(“Why make the effort?” Grantaire remembers asking him, kicking his Converse shoe through a puddle on the sidewalk, and feeling muted dismay when the resulting splash splatters his pant leg with gross sidewalk water. He's never claimed that his drunk self was very smart, but what else had he expected, really?

Enjolras had sighed, and looked at him with an annoyed yet fond gaze and said, “It'd be a shame if you split your head open on the sidewalk.”)

On that walk, Grantaire delighted in how easy it was to taunt Enjolras into jumping in puddles and walking in the middle of the road.

“Any more bets?” Éponine asks the room, before leaning back in her chair and continuing, “I think he got into a conversation with an old lady on the train or something, and is too polite to tell her he’s missed his stop.”

“You’ve obviously never seen Enjolras in conversation with old women.” Combeferre replies, almost immediately. “He’s generally polite, but as soon as he needs to get somewhere, he’ll do anything to get out of the conversation.”

“I bet he dropped his folder, and he’s trying to chase down all the loose papers that got carried away by the wind.” Joly chimes in, cheerfully, and Musichetta puts her head on his shoulder, giggling softly.

Grantaire sips his long black, inhales through his nose, and decides to join the conversation by pitching in his two cents. “I bet he misjudged the line at Starbucks, but is too close to the counter, now, to say _fuck it_ and leave.” He says, and Jehan snorts.

“How dare you suggest Enjolras gets his coffee from Starbucks.” Éponine immediately counters, arching an eyebrow, and putting a hand to her heart, mockingly.

“Are you saying that because you think it’s rude he’d get coffee from anywhere but your coffee shop?” Grantaire asks, and watches Combeferre lean in, in interest. “Or because you think it’s dumb of me to suggest he’d get his coffee from an international conglomerate that mistreats its workers and serves mediocre goods and services for outrageous prices rather than supporting a small business?”

She considers the options for a moment, probably very aware of all the intense gazes on her (bar Marius’s) and basking in the attention, before replying, “Both.”

There's a bit of conversation overlap, and Grantaire phases out, staring at a certain plank of wood below his feet. Life is kind of like this, now. He personally blames Joly. Joly’s the one who asked Grantaire to help him carry Musichetta and Bossuet’s culinary creations down to his car for the ABC bake sale almost a year ago, now, and Grantaire, like an idiot, had done it. That's when and where he'd met the infamous club creator, Enjolras, and become weirdly infatuated with him, while holding four different kinds of cake, wrapped in plastic wrap, and not really listening to the careful instructions Enjolras was listing off, in favour of staring at his mouth, á la Marius.

Grantaire’s well aware there's probably something wrong with him, since his way of showing interest in Enjolras is to jab him with smartass comments at any possible moment, and drive him up the fucking wall. At least it makes it super hard for Enjolras to catch on, and that's why Grantaire continues to do it. As long as Enjolras just thinks it's part of his charming personality, he's safe.

“I bet!” Courfeyrac cries, over the din, and effectively draws Grantaire’s attention back to the present, and the whipped cream moustache Courfeyrac is still sporting. Once satisfied he now has everyone's attention, Courfeyrac grins, and says, “I bet he has a hangover, and hasn’t realised he’s late to the meeting, because he’s barely functioning and forgot we even have a meeting today.”

Combeferre looks more exasperated than betrayed, but he still says, “Got something to tell us, Courf?”

“Oh,” Courfeyrac laughs, “I _definitely_ dragged him along on my bar-hopping escapades, last night, and I _absolutely_ peer-pressured him into drinking.”

“Goddammit, Courf.” Combeferre bursts, shoving him off his chair.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!” Courfeyrac exclaims, barely stopping himself from spilling his frappe. The din reappears as everyone bickers over whether it's worth staying to see if Enjolras shows up or not, and Grantaire rolls his eyes.

“Here’s a thought,” Grantaire interrupts, and everyone’s eyes snap to him. He sighs, “Has anyone thought to call him, yet?”

Immediately, everyone whips out their phones, and while a few lift them to their ears, others just type madly. Grantaire mentally congratulates himself for how stressed Enjolras is going to feel in a few minutes. He also feels a little bad, but that feeling goes away pretty quickly - in fact, the feeling goes away as soon as the door bursts open, and Enjolras, looking harried and a tad green, rushes in, papers falling out of his binder in his wake.

“Enjolras,” Courfeyrac yells, and Enjolras stops dead in his tracks, looking like a deer in the headlights. “Exactly what fucking time do you call this?”

Enjolras literally looks like he's forcing down vomit, as he replies, “I dropped my folder.”

Joly and Musichetta high-five. Bossuet, Courfeyrac, Éponine, and Grantaire all go digging through their wallets to pay up.

* * *

**2.**

Grantaire is trying very hard to not think about exactly what kind of grossly desperate hanky panky might be going on in his room, right this minute. He guesses he should blame himself for handing Marius that jäegerbomb about half an hour ago, and he guesses he really brought it on himself by not putting up a sign on his door that said **NO SEX UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES** , but, hey, maybe it's just the universe fucking with him.

In any case, he can celebrate that the desperately exasperating pining going on between Cosette and Marius is finally fucking resolved, and get on with his life, a resolve in place to clean his sheets at least three times before ever sleeping on them again. Bossuet bumps their shoulders together and Grantaire gives him the thinnest smile possible, hoping to convey _please kill me where I stand_ through a single look.

There are plenty of things he can distract himself with, Grantaire supposes; Jehan’s attempting to make mac ‘n cheese in the kitchen with a very drunk Éponine ranting over her fifth glass of red wine by the stove, Joly’s got his head in Musichetta’s lap while they watch Finding Nemo on the flat screen in the corner, Courfeyrac’s currently going to town against a wall with a guy Grantaire has never seen before in his life (he's rest assured they won't be fucking in _his_ bed, later), and Enjolras is nowhere in sight.

“When did Enjolras say he was gonna get here?” Grantaire shouts over whatever top forty hit is currently being blasted through Bahorel’s portable speaker.

Bossuet frowns, and pulls out his phone, “He said nine in the group chat, but Combeferre’s not here, yet, either, so maybe they're carpooling?”

“Carpooling makes you an hour late?” Grantaire inquires.

“Chillax, R, it's just Enjolras.” Bossuet says, laughing and rolling his eyes. “He'll get here when he gets here.”

“But he _said_ nine, and he's _never_ late.” He hates to sound like a whiny child, but apparently the vodka cruiser he's been nursing for the last fifteen minutes isn't being kind to him.

Bossuet laughs again, and Grantaire thinks he's maybe taking a video of him, but that doesn't mean shit to him, right now. “You forget that one time a month ago when he was crazy late to the meeting.”

“That doesn't count.” Grantaire informs him, sniffing and drinking a mouthful of vodka cruiser, which he only regrets a little. “He had Courfeyrac’s influence and the wind against him.”

“Maybe they got held up because traffic sucks?” Bossuet sighs. He's drinking Coca Cola, because despite the fact that he lives in this house, many of their friends don't, and Bossuet is fully prepared to drive all of them home.

“At ten pm on a Tuesday night?” Grantaire asks him, and Bossuet finally looks at him with an exasperated raised eyebrow.

“Why _are_ we throwing a ranger on a Tuesday night?” He asks, looking over at his partners who are now yelling at the TV. His lips twitch into a fond smile.

“Because Feuilly’s finally getting his dog, and we’re celebrating?” Grantaire suggests, actually not quite sure if that's it or not, but it sounds right. There was definitely a dog, and Feuilly was very excited about it. If Grantaire’s wrong, he'll eat his own shoe.

“Is that really cause for a rager?” Bossuet mutters. “Actually, no, we’re changing the subject - what is with you?”

“Hm?” He doesn't actually look at Bossuet, just continues staring into the distance, where Feuilly is absolutely decimating Bahorel at pool.

Bossuet, noticing this, taps Grantaire on the shoulder, his eyebrow raised questioningly when Grantaire turns to look at him. “Why are you so hung up on when Enjolras is getting here?”

Grantaire huffs, attempting to fold his arms over his chest, defensively, “Well, _excuse me_ if he just happens to be an emotional piñata that I enjoy whacking.”

“That's such a weird metaphor.” Bossuet groans, and sips at his Coca Cola. Grantaire suspects he wants to finish it before Enjolras gets here and gets mad when he sees Bossuet drinking it. Enjolras has a thing about big-name companies.

“You're a weird metaphor.” Grantaire mutters back, elbowing Bossuet in the ribs.

Bossuet elbows him back, “Do you like him?”

“I think I'd have to to hang out with him as often as I do.” He deflects, sipping his vodka cruiser, and dodging as Bossuet goes to knock it out of his hand.

“Not like that.” He groans. “Like, _like_ like.”

“I didn't realise we were still in the second grade, B.” Grantaire says, feeling the most sober he's been all evening as he makes the sarcastic jibe at Bossuet’s chosen words. Bossuet scowls.

“Do you have a crush on him?” He asks, directly.

“Enjolras?” Grantaire sighs. “Are you kidding me?”

“That's not an answer, R.” Bossuet informs him, haughtily. “Are you purposefully evading the question, or are you so drunk right now that you don't understand how questions and answers work?”

“I don't have a crush on him; I just need someone to tease while I'm still sober enough to remember it's my favourite pastime.”

“That's mean.” Bossuet mutters.

“It's my nature.” Grantaire says, sagely.

He gestures to Grantaire’s drink. “Should I be taking that away from you?”

“I think you should be monitoring Ép’s alcohol consumption more closely than mine.” Grantaire replies, gesturing to where she's abandoned her wine glass and is now sipping from the bottle as she openly weeps. She gets very emotional when she's drunk, and Grantaire supposes the Cosette-Marius fuckfest going on in his bedroom isn't helping.

(Grantaire isn't even sure which of the two she's more upset about. At some point, her very obvious feelings for the both of them kind of melded together, and now Grantaire doesn't know if Éponine even knows who she's in love with.)

“I think Jehan has it under control.” Bossuet’s tone implies that he does not think Jehan has it under control, but is unwilling to put the energy into cheering up Éponine right now.

“Do you?” Grantaire asks, genuinely curious. “Because I don't.”

Bossuet rolls his eyes, and takes a swig from his Coca Cola. “Do you really have room to judge here, Mr I'm Denying My Feelings?”

“I'm not _denying_ my feelings, I'm _lying_ about them.” Grantaire says, grinning toothily. His mouth feels fuzzy. He really wants to brush his teeth. “It's a _totally different thing.”_

“Oh?” Here, Bossuet looks amused.

“I _don't_ have a crush on Enjolras.” Grantaire cries, throwing his hands up, careful not to spill his drink. “He _just happens_ to be _very_ visually appealing, and also _kinda hot_ when he's angry.”

“Okay,” Bossuet laughs, putting emphasis on the kay, snatching Grantaire’s cup out of his hand, “I am _definitely_ taking this away from you, as funny as this is.”

“Oh, come on, it's common knowledge!” Grantaire cries, reaching for his drink, only to have Bossuet lean almost all the way over the kitchen counter in an effort to stop Grantaire. “I'm not saying anything that everyone hasn't already thought. Enjolras is hot, and anyone who says they've never thought about fucking him is a filthy fucking liar and, above all, a coward.”

This makes Bossuet straighten up. “I dare you to say that to Combeferre.” He challenges, and Grantaire scowls.

“Fuck no! That would be like sitting my grandmother down and showing her my sex tape.” He informs him, gravely.

Bossuet looks incredibly conflicted for a moment, before saying, as quietly as he can manage, “You have a sex tape?”

“No,” Grantaire scoffs, reaching for his drink and knocking it out of Bossuet’s hand, onto the carpet he'll inevitably have to clean tomorrow, “but if I _did_ , the last person I'd want to see it would be my _grandmother.”_

The front door opens, and Enjolras stalks in, already looking a tad unimpressed. Bossuet glances between them with absolutely no subtlety. Grantaire elbows him in the ribs, again, and goes to the kitchen for another drink.

When he turns around, after pulling a beer can from the fridge, Enjolras is very close behind him, looking a little bit relieved for some reason. The relief disappears when he sees the beer can in Grantaire's hand.

“Heeeeeeey,” Grantaire says, closing the fridge door, and leaning on it. “It's Enjolras! Who knew Enjolras was gonna be here and didn't warn me?”

Enjolras glances between his face and the beer again. It's his judgy-mcjudgement face. “R, are you drunk?” He asks, quieter than Grantaire would expect when he's in judgy-judgement mode.

“Maybe? Can't remember.” Grantaire shrugs. He and Joly and Chetta had pregamed a bit before the party, but Bossuet had fed them pizza and bottled water after that, so he doesn't think that counts. On the other hand, there were Bahorel’s jäegerbombs, and a few vodka cruisers after that, so who’s to say? Grantaire changes the subject as he opens his beer. “Um…you're fashionably late. Trying it out to see if it's your colour, or…?”

“Traffic was bull.” Enjolras mutters, grabbing a glass from the cupboard and pouring himself a glass of water. “Combeferre was getting antsy in the car. What did I miss?”

“Nothing much - Marius and Cosette are fucking in my bedroom, and Éponine is weeping about it to Jehan who's making us all dinner.” Enjolras nods as he chugs the glass of water, and Grantaire forces himself to not watch his throat as he swallows. “Um, Chetta and Joly have told me and every other person here that they love Bossuet’s butt, and also the rest of him, so _that's_ happening - I personally blame their pregame drinks - and I don't even know _who_ Courfeyrac is making out with, but he's sure making out with _someone.”_

“You're very up to date.” Enjolras notes.

Grantaire shrugs, casually, putting aside the excitement that bursts in his chest at Enjolras’s almost impressed tone. “I'm a people-watcher by nature.”

“I see.” They pause; Enjolras to refill his glass and chug that, Grantaire to steal a spoonful of mac ‘n cheese from Jehan’s pot. When Grantaire turns back, Enjolras is staring at him with a calculating expression. Grantaire licks his spoon clean and tosses it into the sink. “How much of this night are you intending to remember?”

He cocks his head and considers. “Unless I get proposed to or arrested, I don't care.” He ends up replying, and Enjolras rolls his eyes.

“I'm gonna find you some chips, and we’re gonna sober you up on the balcony, okay?” He says, taking Granatire’s beer and putting it on the counter, out of his reach.

“Why?” Grantaire asks, trying not to sound like a whining child who's favourite toy was just confiscated, he refrains from making grabby hands at the beer can.

“Because,” Enjolras replies, lightly, “you haven't picked a fight with me, yet, and that worries me.”

Grantaire makes his way to the balcony, unlikely to do anything but what Enjolras says, right now. To get to the balcony from the apartment, you have to push the window up as high as it will go, then push out the fly screen, and climb through the gap. It's quite a bit of a hassle, so they don't use the balcony often, but for some reason Enjolras likes it, so Grantaire goes.

Besides that, even, there's not all that much of a view. There's the apartment block, across the street, and a few, taller buildings in the distance, sparkling with asymmetrical lights, all the way down, and mesmerising Grantaire as he leans son the edge of the stone ledge. So, actually, there's a bit of a view, but it's only really good at night, and quite dreary in the day, hence its misuse.

A minute later, Enjolras emerges onto the balcony with a plastic mixing bowl of crinkle cut chips, and a bottle of water from the fridge. “Glad to see you didn't topple over the ledge.” He says, giving Grantaire a sort of smile that Grantaire isn't sure how to decipher.

They take seats on the aging lawn chairs, and Grantaire goes to town on the chips. Enjolras just looks glad to be sitting down, eyes closing, breaths coming out in sighs. He has his cup of water balanced on his thigh, and there's a drip running down the side. Enjolras opens his eyes and catches Grantaire staring in the direction of his crotch, raising an eyebrow. Grantaire can only shrug.

“Long day?” He asks, through a mouthful of chips. The taste of salt on his tongue after the bitter stinging of the alcohol is actually more welcoming than Grantaire expected.

Enjolras laughs, a bit, not a lot of humour in his tone. “You could say that, yes.”

Grantaire frowns, “Am I making it worse?”

“No, R,” he says, and then actually smiles, a proper Tellytubby Sun blinding smile, “if anything you're making it better.”

Grantaire pretends that doesn't mean the fucking world to him, and eats another handful of chips, hoping Enjolras just thinks he's hungry and isn't trying to impress him by sobering up.

* * *

**3.**

“Quick question,” Grantaire says, straining to keep his phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. He has to keep quiet or he'll be found out, and that's the exact last thing he needs right now, if he wants rescue to come any quicker. “Where the _fuck_ are you guys?”

Enjolras sighs on the other end of the line, and Grantaire swears he can hear him rolling his eyes, as well, “I honestly think you can blame Ép for this one - OW! CUT IT OUT!” Grantaire winces at the muffled slapping noises through the speaker of his phone.

“Stop talking shit, you maroon _fuck.”_ Éponine’s faint voice replies. He hears the sound of her fast-ticking indicator, so obviously they're on their way, but Grantaire doesn't know where they were, and how far away they are now, and that could be his undoing. “We’re about five minutes out, R. Hang in there.”

“You said, when you left, that you'd be back _within the hour.”_ Grantaire hisses, glancing, quickly around the room. No sign, so he's in the clear, for the moment. “What on _earth_ were you doing that took _three hours?”_

“It's almost as if Éponine lied to me about what she was doing,” Enjolras says in a mock-scandalised tone, “and had me join her in stalking Marius and Cosette on their date-”

“It wasn't stalking!” More muffled slapping noises. Enjolras cries out several things _(ack! stop that! you're gonna crash the car! uncle! uncle!)_ and the slapping subsides. There's a creak of a floorboard in a room over and Grantaire jumps, on edge. “Stop exposing me, or I'll pull over and chuck you out of this car!”

“Don't pull over!” Grantaire whisper shouts. “Your fucking gremlin of a brother is going to _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ me, I swear, Ép.”

“Fuck.” She groans, and there's some muffled noises, including Enjolras muttering _you can't just snatch people’s phones, Ép,_ and then her voice is closer and clearer. “Did he tie you to a chair using the purple jumprope?”

Grantaire looks down at his bound limbs, frowning, “He used the green one.”

“Little fucking goblin.” Éponine mutters. “Used to do that to his babysitter. And me. Sorry, R.”

“He's been doing this for _how_ long?” Enjolras asks, literally sounding aghast.

“You forget how fucking weird my parents were.” She responds, sounding quite grave. Grantaire remembers her parents. They were batshit insane con artists, who turned to insurance fraud when money was tight. They got arrested and convicted eight years ago, when Gavroche was four and Éponine was fresh out of high school. She's been raising him ever since, and everyone takes turns babysitting him. It's Grantaire’s turn tonight, but the twelve year-old had other plans, apparently.

Grantaire just thinks Gavroche wants to be given responsibility to look after himself, and totally gets it, but doesn't think Gavroche understands that, hence why Grantaire is currently tied to a chair in the spare room of Éponine’s house, waiting for Gavroche to catch him on his phone, calling for help.

Actually, Grantaire doesn't think Enjolras did ever meet the Thénardier’s, and good thing too, because he knew them as a teenager, and knows they're fucking evil.

“Right.” Grantaire grits out, trying in vain to loosen the rope around his waist, binding his wrists to the chair.

“I'm really sorry about this, R.” Éponine apologises, again. “I'm going as quickly as I can.”

“We’re currently stopped at a red light.” Enjolras’s muffled voice interjects. There's a pause where Grantaire was expecting more slapping noises.

“I hope you know, Enjolras,” Éponine begins, in a calm tone, “that after I kill you, no one will find your body, and if I get a speeding fine, you're paying for it.”

Another pause. Grantaire tries to imagine the looks on both of their faces. Enjolras breaks the silence by saying, “From beyond the grave?”

“Why are you never this snarky when _we’re_ fighting, Enj?” Grantaire questions, lowly. “Why does _Éponine_ get all the snark?”

“He just likes me better, R,” Éponine deadpans, “nothing more'n that.”

The door begins to creak open and Grantaire nearly drops his phone from where it's wedged between his shoulder and his ear, but it stops, a few centimetres open, now. He's pretty sure Gavroche is trying to psychologically fuck him up, under threat of a one-sided Nerf war, and he's pretty sure it's working.

“Can you guys please hurry up and get here?” He pleads, quietly, sure that Gavroche is on the other side of the door, waiting for Grantaire to crack. And Grantaire is cracking, alright.

“We’re, like, three streets over.” Éponine promises, and Enjolras hums in agreement, faintly. “I shouldn't be going this fast in this area, but I'm speeding for you, R.”

“Thanks.” He says through gritted teeth. His fingers are fidgeting against the smooth plastic of the green jumprope he's restrained by, trying to find purchase to tug and untie, but to no avail. This kid is a fucking Eagle Scout, apparently.

“I'm gonna pull in, and Enjolras is gonna come in and free you, okay?” Éponine instructs, and he can hear her indicator, again. Her stupid red buggie has a weird indicator that ticks way faster than normal cars, and it always sets Grantaire on edge. There's no way he could be more on edge, right now. “We’re on my street, hang in there.”

Grantaire glances around the room, worridley. It's not that he ever thought he'd die in Éponine’s spare room, but he's pretty sure he's going to die here. “Hey, guys, if I don't make it, just make sure Joly doesn't give away my shit.” He says, quietly, hoping they hear.

“Why would _Joly_ give away your shit?” Enjolras inquires, sounding curious. “It's _Bossuet_ who’s always complaining that you're a fucking hoarder.”

Before Grantaire can respond, angrily, he hears the car door open and slam shut on the other end of the line, but also outside the house, and breathes in, deeply, relieved that he's not alone with Gavroche anymore.

He hears the front door open, and there's a shuffling outside the spare room door that fades towards the front of the house. Gavroche is going for Enjolras. Enjolras may talk a big game most of the time, but in truth he’s probably fucking doomed.

“Éponine,” he whispers into the receiver and hears all her fidgeting in the car go quiet.

“What is it?” She whispers back, unnecessarily.

“Don't come inside.” Grantaire tells her, hearing Enjolras yelling something indistinct. “Gav just got Enjolras. It'll be you next.”

“You forget that I raised this kid.” Éponine points out, and while he sees her logic, he also knows Gavroche is on a roll.

“I'm just saying that _this kid_ has tied me to a chair using a jumprope, and is probably doing the same to Enjolras, as we speak.” He thinks he can hear Gavroche muttering something under Enjolras’s cries for freedom and for mercy. “I don't want you suffering the same fate.”

“Maybe I'll come up with a better plan than Mr I'll-Just-Walk-Through-The-Front-Door-Then-Shall-I?”

“Maybe you will.” Grantaire agrees, hearing the sound of a chair being dragged along the floorboards. He wonders how much that's scratching them.

“Call me if there's an update on whether or not Gav got Enjolras.” She says.

“Will do.” Éponine hangs up, and Grantaire drops the phone. It cracks on the floor and the screen goes black. “Great. GAV! YOU’RE BUYING ME A NEW PHONE.”

“YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL ME, FIRST!” Gavroche yells back, sounding only a few metres away. Grantaire doesn't know why he can't hear Enjolras yelling anymore.

He finds out, about a minute and a half later, when Gavroche kicks open the spare room door, and drags Enjolras, tied to a chair with the purple jumprope, with his tie stuffed in his mouth, inside. Enjolras stares at Grantaire with wide eyes, and Grantaire just shrugs, as much as he's able to, while being restrained.

Gavroche places Enjolras behind Grantaire, back to back, and surveys them through his stolen aviator sunglasses. He has his purple BMX hoodie pulled up over his head and the strings tied under his chin, as well as a loaded Nerf gun in his hand. “You both went down so easy.” He informs them, and Enjolras makes an offended noise through his tie.

“You had the element of surprise, squirt.” For that, Grantaire gets a Nerf bullet to the chest.

“Don't call me squirt.” Gavroche says in what Grantaire supposes is meant to be an ominous voice.

“Sure thing, _kiddo.”_ Nerf bullet to the throat. That actually kind of hurts, so Grantaire just gives him a bit of a smile and hangs his head in an attempt to not lose any more dignity.

“Where's my sister?” Snap and a clack of plastic as he reloads the gun, pointed between both their heads. Grantaire wishes he could crane his head to look over at Enjolras and give him a _have you got a load of this guy?_ look.

“Guess.” He drawls, instead.

“Do you _want_ to get shot again?” Gavroche asks in a tone that suggests if Grantaire does there's something seriously wrong with him.

“Please, it's been the highlight of my day.” Grantaire responds, dryly. Gavroche raises an eyebrow and sighs as he loops his finger around the trigger.

“Could you not taunt him, please?” Enjolras asks, having apparently worked the tie out of his mouth. “It's just gonna make it worse for us.”

“Enj here has the right idea.” Gavroche agrees, gesturing to Enjolras with his Nerf gun, and making Enjolras lurch to the side in an effort to not get shot with it. All he ends up doing is knocking over his chair.

As soon as Gavroche has got Enjolras’s chair upright again, Enjolras asks, “That being said, why are you doing this?”

“Just proving I can take care of myself,” Gavroche responds, simply, casting cursory looks over both of them as he heads for the door, “and I don't need a bogus mid-twenties babysitter every time my sister decides to go out.”

“You could just sit her down and tell her that instead of starting what looks to be a one man Revolution.”

He shrugs. “This is more fun.” The door closes, and they're left alone.

“So,” Grantaire drawls after a few moments of silence, “you’re late, again.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, R.” Enjolras deadpans. “I would have _totally_ missed that.”

He swallows, wondering how long he's going to be stuck here, wondering when Éponine’s gonna swoop in and save the day, “Always here to help.”

Another pause.

“You know, I don’t make a habit out of being late.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t plan to.”

“I know.”

There's a bunch of shifting behind him and then the smack of a chair leg leaving the ground and then slamming back down. “Then why bother bringing it up?” Enjolras demands, sounding truly perplexed.

“Because it never really happens, and now this is the third time in the span of a few months, so it’s kind of hard to ignore.”

“I suppose.” Enjolras admits.

“You _suppose?”_ Grantaire echoes, and laughs.

“I’m usually so punctual.” He sighs in reply.

“Yeah, you are.” He agrees, quietly. “What’s been going on, Enjolras? You know you can talk to me about stuff like this, right?”

“Right.” Enjolras echoes. “You know, being late doesn’t have to have some deep meaning.”

“Of course I do.” Grantaire assures him, and bumps their heads together, gently. “But, Enjolras, forgive if I’m wrong, everything with _you_ has a deep meaning.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Enjolras demands as the door swings open and Éponine, holding Gavroche by the collar of his hoodie, stalks in.

“Hey, geniuses!” She greets them, and snickers when Grantaire responds by shrugging, minutely. “I’ve won, you guys can go home now.”

“Awesome, thanks Ép.” Grantaire says to her. “Would you do me the honour of untying me?”

“And me!” Enjolras adds, quickly. Éponine rolls her eyes. But stalks over to their chairs anyway, which are somewhat parted by Enjolras's earlier attempts at freeing himself.

“Just fyi,” she says, as she kneels down and begins to untie Grantaire, “You, Enjolras, are bad at stalking,” he huffs in response, “Grantaire, you’re a bad babysitter, and Gav, you’re bad at being babysat.”

“I don’t want to be babysat, anymore!” Gavroche whines. If he was going for an authoritative tone, earlier, he's totally ruining it now. Éponine looks almost bored. “I’ve already shown you I could _Home Alone_ the shit out of you and your friends! Why can’t you give me the responsibility to take care of myself?”

 _“That’s_ what you want?” Éponine replies, incredulously, as if she was expecting something much larger than that.

“Yeah?” Gavroche looks confused. There's been some serious miscommunication here, obviously. Grantaire loathes to think what living in this house 24/7 is like.

“Why didn’t you just say something?” She asks, rolling her eyes, and freeing Grantaire from the jumprope. Gavroche points his loaded gun at her. “And if you think I’m afraid of being shot at close range with Nerf darts, you’ve got another thing coming, Gav.”

* * *

**4.**

“So is this gonna become a regular thing, or…?” Grantaire trails off, waiting for somebody, anybody to answer him.

“With Enjolras?” Joly inquires, absently, three seats to Grantaire’s left, leaning so far over Musichetta that he's practically in her lap. Grantaire suspects neither of them would have a real problem with that, if it were what was happening. “Who can say?”

“He's usually pretty reliable about this kind of thing.” Combeferre sighs to Grantaire’s immediate left. The whole group is here - though Cosette and Marius are conspiring with whispers at the head of the table they've booked at this vaguely fancy restaurant - so why Enjolras has yet to make an appearance yet is a bit worrying.

“This is, what? The fourth time?” Grantaire glances at the entrance again. He’ll only get more frantic if the waitress comes back to take their food orders and Enjolras isn’t here. She's already taken their drink orders. “What do the Fates have against him, lately?”

“I bet he'll just blame it on traffic, again.” Éponine mumbles in between stuffing bites of garlic bread in her mouth.

He finds himself glancing at the entrance again and flinches back into his seat, violently, disturbing Combeferre and Bossuet with the sudden movement, when he realises what he's doing. He settles, willing himself to not go complete fucking insane over this, over Enjolras. “Okay, I’m gonna give it another five minutes before the waitress comes back for food orders, and then twenty to thirty minutes until the food itself comes out, so I’m gonna go and piss, and by the time I get back he better be here or there will be blood.”

“God, cool your punctuality boner.” Courfeyrac snorts from across the table.

“And your Enjolras boner.” Bahorel mutters from next to him, and Grantaire tosses a balled up napkin at him, with the devastatingly flippant retort of, “Fuck _off.”_

When he returns from The Longest Bathroom Visit Of All Time™, he decides to take even longer, and get everyone new drinks from the bar. And that's where he is, standing at the bar, by the door, when Enjolras stumbles in, windblown and panting, looking frantic.

He almost speed walks right past Grantaire, but he calls out his name, and his fingers brush Enjolras’s inner elbow, so he stop short and looks back at him.

“Hey,” Grantaire greets him, casually, and then gestures to the empty bar stool, beside him. “Take a breather for a bit. I'm getting everyone's drinks, hang out with me.”

Enjolras wordlessly accepts the offer, and collapses onto the barstool, head in his folded arms on the table, the way his shoulders slow in their rising and falling indicating that he's trying to control his breathing, again.

“I ordered you a Vanilla Coke.” Grantaire offers, as a conversation starter. Enjolras offers back a very weak and very brief thumbs up, before the hand disappears back into the folded mess underneath his face on the bar. Grantaire glances over Enjolras’s hunched form to see Combeferre and Éponine staring at them, and murmuring to each other.

He narrows his eyes at them, and then proceeds to do the _I'm watching you_ hand signal, which Éponine repeats back at him, before flipping him the bird.

“You don't even have to tell me I'm late again.” Enjolras says, finally emerging from his arms.

“I wasn't going to say anything.” Grantaire replies, falsely nonchalantly.

“Liar,” Enjolras accuses, pulling out his phone and scrolling through a message conversation with Courfeyrac. “Courf said, and I quote, _he's losing his goddamn mind over you not being here, hurry up, lmao.”_

“What a traitor.” Grantaire mutters to himself, and Enjolras must hear, because he laughs.

He bumps his elbow into Grantaire’s ribs, uncharacteristically. “It's kinda nice to know you care enough about me to worry when I'm not there.” He admits in a smaller voice.

Grantaire tries not to let that go to his head, and just nods, absently.

Their drinks get delivered on two trays, and Enjolras helps him carry them over to the table. Enjolras endures the jibes and jokes about his lateness, once more, and then the waitress appears to take their orders, so the chaos disappears for a second, and Grantaire is free to view Enjolras, solely focused, without being observed himself. He didn't even notice that he made a habit of staring at Enjolras when he was unaware he was being watched, but he has, and he continues to do so, and it's not exactly a harmful habit, so why stop?

After the waitress leaves, the go back to their separate conversations, and Grantaire has to go back to covertly staring at Enjolras.

Although, apparently not covertly enough, since Combeferre seems to pick up on it, immediately. “Hey, R, has Enjolras got something on his face, or…” he asks, lowly, and Grantaire has no choice but to look at him as a deer would at oncoming headlights.

Éponine rolls her eyes at him, on the other side of Combeferre. “God, you're so obvious.” She complains, loudly, as if Enjolras weren't sitting right across the table. But Enjolras barely even notices. He's really absorbed in a conversation with Feuilly. Grantaire thinks he catches the word _Poland_ and phases out, immediately. He loves Feuilly, but he won't engage in another discussion about Poland with him, not even for Enjolras. “The fact that he hasn't picked up on it, yet, is fucking stunning.”

“Hey!” Grantaire says, loathing her condescending tone, even as she grins, wickedly, at him.

“Just saying,” she says, holding her hands up as if in surrender, but continuing her sentence, “if you keep looking at him like he hung the moon and the stars, he's eventually gonna ask what's wrong with your eyes.”

He narrows his eyes at her, “I couldn't tell you why, but I want to take offence to that.”

“Mark my words,” Éponine warns him with foreboding in her tone, a tone he remembers well from the ghost stories she used to tell, back in high school when he was still scared of ghost stories, “you don't do something about this, and it is gonna come back and bite you in the ass.”

Combeferre waits a moment after she finishes her sentence and turns to her, a frown on his lips. “I would have phrased that a tad gentler but-” he begins.

“Gentler-schmentler,” she replies, waving a dismissive hand, “R needed a good push, and I'm only good at mediocre shoving, so that's what he got.”

Grantaire eats his meal is spiteful silence, grunting in agreement to the occasional statement hurled his way by Bossuet and Éponine, and meaningfully never spending more than a second with his eyes on Enjolras’s perfect fucking face.

As dessert is brought out, Marius and Cosette stand up, effectively killing every other conversation at the table, and halting Grantaire in his quest to devour his tiramisu as fast as possible. They look so fucking radiant together they're practically glowing. He doesn't look at Éponine, fearing the look on her face at seeing the two people she loves most in this world looking so happy together.

“We have an announcement to make.” Cosette says, and Grantaire sees, out of the corner of his eye, Joly and Bossuet exchange money. Cosette looks to Marius, squeezes his hand, and grins. “We’re-”

“We’re getting married!” Marius interrupts, the words coming out so fast it's almost like he literally couldn't hold them inside his head any longer. There's a moment of shocked silence that overtakes the group.

Then Jehan practically yells, “Oh, hell fucking yes!” And the rest of them start talking indistinctly, excitedly. Bossuet is complaining that if they had held off for another month he'd be twenty dollars richer, and not Joly, Joly is assuring him that their shared bank account doesn't mind, Éponine has Cosette’s hands clutched so tightly in her own that Grantaire isn't sure how Cosette isn’t screaming in pain and is talking to her with such enthusiasm that he's never seen it paralleled.

Grantaire’s known Éponine a long time. She can't be faking that shit. Once everyone calms down. Cosette announces, happily, that Éponine has agreed to be her maid of honour, and is gonna rock it, to which Éponine nods happily.

(Grantaire literally hasn't seen Éponine this happy in a while, mostly because Cosette and Marius were dating, and she was in love with both of them, and now that they're getting married, she's happy beyond anything? Grantaire will never understand her, truly.)

Then Marius stutters through a big song and dance to Courfeyrac, so big and so stuttering that it literally sounds like a proposal in its own right, and Courfeyrac stops him with a finger to his lips, and says, “Not that I don't love everything being about me, all the time, but I'm gonna stop you right there, and just say yes to being your best man, okay?”

Marius sighs in relief. “Oh thank god, the rest of my speech was rubbish.”

After that, there's lots of talk of preparations, talks of parties and accomodation and dress codes, and talk of Cosette’s father, who they've all heard is fiercely protective of her and who they all very slightly fear, despite never having met him.

As they leave, that night, Grantaire finds Enjolras outside, leaning against a wall, and scrolling through messages or emails on his phone. Grantaire tells Bossuet and his slightly tipsy partners that he'll make his own way home and not to wait up for him, even if they really want to, which they take to heart, quite seriously. “They were dating for, what? Five months?” Grantaire says, casually, joining Enjolras against the wall. “Moving a bit fast, don't you think?”

“I think they're in love.” Enjolras replies, absently, and then looks up from his phone, the light from the screen casting washed out and jagged shadows on his face. “And I think people do crazy, lovely things when they're in love.”

Grantaire can't even begin to pick apart that logic, and part of him doesn't even want to. Instead, he sighs, and says, “How are you getting home?” Not something he usually asks his friends - he's usually the one asking if they'll stay ‘til last call.

“Walking.” Enjolras replies, quietly, pocketing his phone. They're almost completely in the dark, now, only the streetlight across the way giving any indication that there could ever possibly be a way for them to make out each others features.

“Want me to come with you?” They both know that if Enjolras said _no,_ Grantaire would still tag along for one reason or another, just to see him home, safe.

Enjolras doesn't say no. He says, “Wanna stay over? It's a long walk from mine to yours.”

Grantaire knows he should say _I need the exercise_ or _I'll take the train_ but, instead, he says, “Love to.”

* * *

**5.**

Grantaire's not even going to pretend he's surprised.

At this point, he has accepted that Enjolras will probably be late to everything for the rest of his life, and he hopes that Enjolras has accepted this as well. He's standing outside what is about to be Marius’s bachelor party (which he's sure will just be movies and games and drinking, because they all love Marius and Cosette too much to make fun of them, and the group is supposed to be progressive, so why would they partake in the _last night of freedom_ bullshit that's heaped onto these things usually).

In any case, Enjolras is about thirty minutes late, and Grantaire excused himself ten minutes prior under the guise of having a smoke break. He doesn't really smoke anymore, but habits are pretty hard to beat, and once in a while he gives in and has one.

Éponine’s been texting him, every so often, to update him on how the bachelorette party is going, and so far it sounds better than this. According to Éponine, Musichetta convinced Bossuet to pregame with her, despite his general abstinence from drinking for events like these, and they showed up pretty much hammered, which Cosette took like a fucking champ, and said, _Ép, my darling, my life, let's scrap the plans and just get wasted, yes?_

Grantaire had asked, “Did she really call you her darling, her life?”

And six drinks deep Éponine had replied, “You bet your pasty white ass, she did.”

So, it sounds like everyone at Cosette’s is having a great time. Meanwhile, upstairs, all is quiet and all is calm. Grantaire can say he's a little disappointed, at this point into the evening, he expected to have Marius at least three drinks deep and weeping over how much he loves Cosette and also how bad he is at Scrabble.

They could be doing that, if Enjolras was on time, but he's not.

The door beside him opens, and Feuilly steps out, straightening his scarf in the early evening cold. Autumn’s setting in quite quickly, and Grantaire finds himself ill-prepared for her arrival.

“Leaving so soon?” Grantaire asks his sudden companion, and Feuilly jumps, looking around until he spots Grantaire, and settles, a hand over his heart.

“You scared me.” He replies, shooting off a quick text and shoving his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. He strolls over to lean on the wall beside Grantaire, despite the way his nose wrinkles at the smoke from Grantaire’s cigarette. “No, I'm not leaving, just came out to check on you.”

“I'm fit as a fiddle, Feuilly, my friend.” Grantaire informs him, and takes a long drag.

When he exhales a long plume of smoke, Feuilly lets out a long breath, as well. “Are you waiting for Enjolras?” Feuilly asks, and Grantaire nearly flushes. The conclusion that he's waiting for Enjolras is a logical one to draw, he supposes, and maybe it's become plain why Grantaire's smoking a cigarette like maybe it will give him the answers to the universe if he smokes it fast enough.

“Maybe,” Grantaire replies, trying not to let on about anything, though he already knows he's blushing. And that's the problem, right? He's seen Enjolras at least once nearly every day in the last few weeks, however short that time may be, and each time they've been together he's caught himself wishing that the moment could last a tad longer. He's realised that his friends were right, in a way.

He wants to be around Enjolras as much as is humanly possible, so when he's late to something he'll fidget and be on edge, and do anything to be one of the first people to greet him when he arrives. Grantaire knows he's being, as Courfeyrac has put it, _insanely anal_ about all of it, but at this point it's just his nature.

Feuilly exhales like he was going to laugh and thought better of it, the look on his face betraying more than a little amusement. “That's…” and again, he lets out a short laugh. Grantaire chooses to interpret it as laughing at the obscurity and less laughing at Grantaire. “Wow.”

“‘Wow’ what?” Grantaire asks, rolling his eyes and raising his cigarette to his lips, once more. It's almost done. He's about to run out of a good reason to be standing outside in the cold.

“‘Wow’, you're really gone on him, aren't you.” Feuilly replies, shuffling on the spot, and hunching his shoulders so he can push his hands down further into his coat pockets. Grantaire stares at him, cigarette burning down between his fingers.

Feuilly’s older than Grantaire by a few years, and Grantaire's just a bit older than everyone else in the group, so he supposes Feuilly considers himself a little more worldly wise than Grantaire. Of course, Éponine and Combeferre and basically all of their friends had made the same kind of insinuation, except a tad less blunt. Where they had made jokes about Grantaire wanting his dick, Feuilly had basically just stated Grantaire was in love with Enjolras.

“What?” Grantaire chokes on the smoke in his lungs and has a bit of a coughing fit. He drops his cigarette on the ground and as he recovers, he grinds it out with his shoe. Feuilly gingerly pats Grantaire’s back, and he waves him away when it's over. _“What_ the fuck-?”

“I just meant-” Feuilly protests, desperately, losing all the air of being worldly wise.

“The _fuck_ with what you _meant,”_ Grantaire interrupts him, laughing through the strange panic that's rising in him, “are you _implying-”_

“Hey, what's going on?” Yells a new voice, and they both turn to see Enjolras jogging down the road, holding the red beanie Jehan had knitted in his hands, hair loose from its usual bun and falling in his eyes. Grantaire glances between him and Feuilly, and covers his mouth with the back of his hand as he coughs a few, final times.

“We - I- I mean, I just-” stutters Feuilly, and all impressions of him being worldly wise are gone. Grantaire tries not to laugh.

“Feuilly caught me smoking.” Grantaire informs Enjolras with as charming a smile as he can manage. “Had a bit of a row, really.”

Enjolras frowns at Grantaire. “That's really unhealthy.” He half-scolds. Knowing Enjolras, he probably could go on and on about why cigarettes are so bad for people, but Grantaire’s already quit smoking, and he's not in the mood for a lecture.

“Hence why I quit.” Grantaire says with a wink.

Enjolras raises an eyebrow, “You _just said_ you were smoking.”

“It's a cheat day, Apollo, calm down.” Grantaire says, and turns towards the door. Best to get inside and get the party actually going, now that everyone's here.

“You know, it's not productive or supportive to criticise someone when they fall off the wagon.” He hears Enjolras say, softly, behind him, obviously to Feuilly.

“I wasn't…” Feuilly begins to protest, and then sighs. “You know what, never mind.”

“Let’s go inside before Courf kills Marius via alcohol poisoning.” Grantaire says to them, holding the door open.

“That's still on the cards for tonight.” Enjolras mutters as he passes.

Grantaire grins in reassurance. “As the resident recovering alcoholic, I'm not going to let that happen.” They arrive back inside Bahorel’s apartment, and Courfeyrac greets them all with glasses of a champagne-peach-juice mix, which Grantaire immediately partakes in.

Enjolras settles himself down on the sofa in the living room where Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Jehan, and Marius have already begun a game of Candyland, watching with avid curiosity between sips of his drink.

Marius isn't as drunk as Grantaire expected Courfeyrac to get him at this point in the evening, which Grantaire finds himself surprisingly relieved about. They get about halfway through Candyland, with Marius far in the lead, and then Jehan gets up to go to the kitchen and make the rest of whatever dinners supposed to be, and asks Grantaire, the most sober person in the room, besides Enjolras, to come and supervise.

What it turns out being is some kind of chicken stir fry with noodles, and Jehan rants about the slam poetry thing he went to the week prior, where apparently every “poem” was about masturbating in a shower and a girl they once fucked who probably had whooping cough, or something. “I swear to god,” Jehan says, scraping at the bottom of his wok, “every single one of those pasty white boy _poets_ was using their first drafts as their final product and I wanted to throttle them.”

“Seems fair.” Grantaire agrees, sipping at his champagne-peach-juice concoction. Jehan later explains to the gathered company over dinner, that he was willing to order take out, but felt that far too ordinary to be present at Marius’s bachelor party.

It's a good night, even if Grantaire does spend a lot more time than he should staring at Enjolras, and running Feuilly’s words through his thoughts like a fine-tooth comb.

_You're really gone on him, aren't you._

* * *

**+1**

They're so fucking late.

He's leaning on the horn, at this point, waiting for Combeferre and Courfeyrac and Enjolras to come bursting through the front door, suitcases in hand, apologising profusely. Instead he keeps getting pyjama clad old people walking up to him and knocking on his window, muttering stuff about being a public nuisance.

He's been texting them since six in the fucking morning.

Personally, Grantaire blames Enjolras. It appears to be his lot in adult life to now be late to events that matter, and in this case, they're going to miss their fucking flight to Marius’s family home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The flight is five hours, because _fuck_ Grantaire’s hangover, apparently, and the tickets were bullshit expensive, but it's Marius and Cosette’s wedding, so he wasn't about to drink himself into a coma and text a frowny face saying he couldn't come.

Grantaire beeps the horn again, and almost immediately receives a text from Combeferre that says _stop honking, we’ll be down in a minute._

Grantaire texts back: _what is taking so long? I've been waiting for 15 minutes. We’re gonna miss our flight._

_Enjolras is hungover._

Grantaire blinks. Enjolras is hungover. Not a sentence he ever thought he'd read in his life. Enjolras? Hungover? On liberty and freedom, perhaps, but on alcohol?

Then again, he did basically go shot for shot with Grantaire last night, both of them already too tipsy to really be thinking straight. He hadn't thought _hey, maybe drinking myself into a stupor isn't a good idea the night before I get on a plane to go to South Dakota for a friend's wedding._ Still, he's only nursing a baby hangover, right now, considering his tolerance to alcohol.

Enjolras, on the other hand, is not a big drinker, and besides that, has always been a lightweight. Grantaire can only imagine the horror Enjolras is going through, right now.

It's a split second decision. He gets out of the car and races up to their apartment.

Courfeyrac answers the door, looking harried and exhausted. “We’re going as fast as we can,” he murmurs, letting Grantaire in.

“Where is he?” Grantaire asks, instead of informing him that going as fast as they can is going to leave them stranded in JFK airport until New Years. Why Marius and Cosette decided to have their wedding the day after Christmas, Grantaire will never understand, but far be it from him to dictate what they should do.

“Enjolras? In his room. Barely human.” Combeferre directs him with a thumb jerked over his shoulder at the bedroom door adorned with a French flag. Fucking typical.

Grantaire skids inside, and Enjolras, eyes bloodshot, hair askew, clothes rumpled, twists around and shushes him. “My head is not taking shit, right now, so shut the fuck up,” he hisses.

“I didn't say anything,” Grantaire whispers back, and surveys the room. It looks like a bomb exploded inside it. There are clothes and books everywhere, and half of them are stuffed inside an open suitcase on the bed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Packing,” Enjolras whispers.

“Right now?” Grantaire asks, thinking _I might kill this man._

There's a pause, and then Enjolras sheepishly says, “I forgot to.”

“We’re going to miss our _fucking_ flight, Enjolras,” Grantaire tells him, rubbing his temples, “and there's a _snowstorm_ heading in, our way.”

 _“I'm_ sorry,” Enjolras says, volume rising, and then he winces, lowering it, again, “I'm trying.”

“Lemme handle this.” Grantaire races out to the living room, where Combeferre and Courfeyrac are patiently waiting with their packed suitcases. Grantaire tosses Combeferre the keys. “Take the car to the airport. Get on the flight. We’ll meet you there.”

“Are you sure.” Combeferre says, but it's not a question, he's just waiting for Grantaire to shoo them off, and Grantaire doesn't really have the time right now.

“No one can handle a bad hangover like an alcoholic.” Grantaire assures them with a wink, and watches them scurry from the apartment. He heads back to Enjolras’s room, and quietly helps him pack up all his stuff, with some sense of order.

It's only when they're on the street, rugged up in jumpers and beanies, trying to get a taxi, that Grantaire realises he left his suitcase in the trunk of the hire car Combeferre and Courfeyrac took to the airport. He swears, quietly, under his breath, and keeps dragging Enjolras along, barely human, barely conscious, behind him.

They do, eventually get a taxi, which is a miracle in itself, it being Christmas Day, and when they're settled in the backseat, Grantaire finally breathes a sigh of relief. He may actually pull this off.

Except that when they arrive at the airport the board of flights informs them that theirs took off ten minutes ago.

Trying to book a new one is a motherfucker, due to all the people in line, already, trying to make up for missed flights so they can be home with their loved ones, so it takes an actual two hours, and half an hour after booking a new flight and texting the group chat that they're on their way, there's an announcement over the PA informing them that all flights are being postponed due to the snowstorm heading in.

Grantaire returns to where he left Enjolras, and finds him napping on his luggage, looking pale as death. “Hey, Enjolras.” He shakes him, gently, trying to not dissolve into panicked tears, and trying not to let his baby hangover morph into a migraine.

Enjolras rouses, and then walks beside Grantaire, holding his hand like a kindergartener, as they walk to the nearby car hire. They hire one of the only cheap cars left and start driving.

Enjolras passes out, again, within thirty minutes. That gives Grantaire a solid two hours to steadily panic, dictating texts to the increasingly panicked Éponine on his phone. He's finally found out what's going on with her and Cosette and Marius, and it seems that all the mutual pining going on is resolved, and Éponine is cool to be their mistress - her chosen title, not his.

(“I feel like it gives me a mysterious vibe, you know? The Pontmercy-Fauchelevent Mistress.”

“They're hyphenating?”

“Best be glad they can't marry me, or there'd be a Thénardier on there end there, too.”)

Three and a half hours in, Enjolras rouses once more, and Grantaire plies him with chilled bottle water and plain chips, along with some Advil Grantaire found buried deep in his backpack and partook in, immediately.

“I honestly feel like I've been dead for the past twelve hours.” Enjolras groans, swallows his Advil with one smooth gulp of water. Grantaire very pointedly looks through the windshield the entire time. “How do you do this?”

“I usually don't, nowadays.” Grantaire replies, loftily, and winces at his tone. “But back when alcoholic was my official title, the trick was taking an Advil before I passed out.”

“Does actually that work?” Enjolras inquires, curiously.

“Honestly?” He turns to look at him, for a moment, a small smile gracing his lips. “Couldn't tell you.”

A ten minute silence follows, as Enjolras devours his chips, and Grantaire adjusts the rear view mirror to avoid watching him lick the salt off his fingers.

Enjolras tugs the air freshener off the rear view mirror and starts fidgeting, “So how long is the drive?”

“Another sixteen hours or so.” Grantaire pretends not to see Enjolras’s tiredly dismayed expression. “I'm gonna need you to chip in on gas money.”

“And that's if we drive through the night, isn't it.” This statement is quiet. Grantaire’s never known Enjolras to be quiet so many times in twenty four hours.

“Yep.” Grantaire’s pretty sure Éponine’s gonna beat his ass when he gets to Marius’s. “No long rest stops, or we become even later than before.”

“Sorry.” Enjolras says, sheepishly.

“It's fine.” He waves a dismissive hand. “I totally baited you last night, I can only blame myself.”

“No, like, I'm sorry because - I mean, yeah, sorry about that,” Grantaire hums in agreement, “but also sorry that you're going to have to do all the driving here.”

He narrows his eyes, staring at the road. “What?”

“I can't drive manual.” Grantaire nearly fucking swerves off the road when he whips his head around to look at Enjolras.

“Are you kidding me?” He asks. He's going to die of exhaustion way before Éponine gets a chance to kill him. “God, fuck. Okay. Jesus.”

“Like I said, sorry.” Enjolras says, again, sheepishly.

Grantaire wants to slam his head into the steering wheel. “Yeah, you're gonna be apologising to me a lot, after this, to make up for the fact that I have to drive through the night.”

~

It's eight when Grantaire pulls into a service station with a McDonalds attached. Enjolras shoots him a tiredly dirty look.

(He decided he was going to stay up with Grantaire so that Grantaire wouldn't be alone. Grantaire thinks that's stupid, and they're both going to be sleep deprived during the wedding, which is fucking perfect, he guesses.)

“I'm gonna fill up the car, you buy us some sustenance.” Grantaire tosses Enjolras his wallet, which Enjolras begrudgingly catches against his chest. “And don't lecture me about the exchange in goods and services to a international chain that mistreats its workers - I know, but there's nothing else for miles and I'm fucking hungry.”

Enjolras mumbles something under his breath, but stalks off, anyway, into McDonalds, without a backward glance.

Grantaire deliberately does not think about Enjolras while he's filling up the car with gas, and does not think about Enjolras while he pays for the gas a candy bar in his pocket. Then, he drives the hire car into the darkened parking lot a little ways away, choking down on his candy bar, and waits.

When Enjolras returns, he's lugging two Big Mac meals with a bottled water and a mocha frappe which is exactly what Grantaire fucking needs right now, Jesus Christ.

They don't speak to each other while they eat. Grantaire wants to turn on the radio, but he can't burn gas on that when they still have a good ways to go to the next gas station.

Grantaire’s picking through his cooling chips when Enjolras speaks up. “Why did you stay behind with me?”

Grantaire shrugs, stuffing a chip that's yet to go soggy in his mouth. “I've had shitty hangovers before, and yours looked fucking balls. I sympathised.”

“Really?” Enjolras’ bottled water crinkles and cracks as he takes a big gulp. Grantaire stares at his chip cup instead of Enjolras’ throat, moving as he swallows. “Is that all?”

Grantaire rises to the challenge, twisting in his seat. The overhead light is on, but it's weird. It's casting such a weird light on Enjolras’ face, slashing it into stark contrast. “What other reason could I have for staying behind with you?”

And then, like snow on a July day, Enjolras’s face colours, and he averts his challenging gaze. “I don't know. I just didn't…you always notice when I'm late to things, I didn't know you cared enough about my punctuality to risk your own.”

“You think this is about punctuality?” Grantaire finds himself asking.

“What else could it be about?” There's less of a challenge in his tone, now, and more curiosity, like he truly can't believe there's be any other reason.

“Maybe I just didn't want you to miss your fucking plane all by yourself. If I hadn't been there you probably would have slept in the airport, and missed the wedding entirely.” He says, trying to sound like it's his real reasoning, when actually that's only half of it. “At this rate we’ll only miss the rehearsal dinner, and I'm pretty sure I can live with that.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

They lapse into silence again. Grantaire’s always thought that Enjolras hates silence,a nod that's why he fills up every shred of it with speeches and rhetorics.

“Do you remember what you said to me, the night you were late to Marius and Cosette’s engagement dinner?” Grantaire asks him, suddenly.

Enjolras shakes his head, and that's fair. They'd both had a few drinks, that night, it was very hard for Grantaire to remember at all, but it had stuck with him, reverberating in his empty skull the next morning, written in the steam on his bathroom mirror after his shower.

“You said _I think people do crazy, lovely things when they're in love.”_ Grantaire watches a searching look Grace Enjolras’ features, he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, he's waiting for the point Grantaire’s about to make, and Grantaire truly isn't ready. He does it anyway. “And, Enjolras, you make me want to do crazy, lovely things for you, like missing my flight and driving twenty hours cross country so you’re not late.”

Silence. Grantaire can't bare to look at him. This was probably a mistake. Grantaire hopes Enjolras at least only ignores him for the rest of the drive.

The hand laying itself gently over his own is what makes Grantaire’s head whip up in surprise. Enjolras is staring at him with wide eyes and an unsure look on his face. Grantaire loathes the way his heart beats faster in his chest, at this.

“You want to do crazy lovely things for me?” This question seems quite loaded, so Grantaire takes it on the chin.

“If you'll permit it.” He replies, just as quietly as Enjolras. He doesn't know why they're being so quiet. There's no one for miles they could disturb.

“You have to let me do crazy, lovely things for you, too, you know?” He's inching closer. Grantaire tries to convince himself this isn't a dream.

He grins at Enjolras, not ready to admit anything outright, yet, but completely prepared to give Enjolras his whole heart anyway. “Well it wouldn't be fair if I didn't let you, now would it?”

~

They arrive at the Pontmercy estate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at nine am, and Éponine is standing in the doorway, in her pyjamas, waiting for them.

She hugs Grantaire first, tight enough that she might, in fact, be trying to kill him, and then Enjolras, with the same fierce intensity, before standing, back surveying the damage, and nodding to herself. “You guys have forty-five minutes to clean yourselves up and get ready before I assign you jobs, and best believe I will not go easy on you.”

“Didn't think you would.” Grantaire informs her with a tired wink, looking forward to the reception where he'll get to drink and laze, and then stumble, tipsily, off to bed to flail into a coma for three days.

Enjolras nods, obediently, and make she's way into the house, suitcase in tow. Éponine catches Grantaire by the elbow, however, and tops him before he can enter.

“Did you finally tell him?” She asks, quietly, and excitedly. She seems giddy. She is not the type to be giddy, but he supposes this is a big day, and she deserves to not be marked down to defining features.

“What makes you think that?” He asks, curious as to what gave him away.

“You're wearing his approval.” Éponine replies, and gestures to Grantaire’s neck, where he already knows a hickey is blooming, dark and obvious. He groans, she laughs. “I'll let you borrow some of my foundation. We’re near the same skin tone, I think; no one will notice.”

  
**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please leave me a kudos an dthe. Consider telling me what you liked about it in the comments, I'd love to know. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.


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